Biocube 29 Compact Fluorescents Too Bright?

[John Stuckey]

I know this sounds strange but I'm struggling with several corals as I move them from the sand bed up to mid tank in my Biocube 29 with stock CF lighting. In particular I have had a war coral favia start to bleach out (he is recovering nicely now that he's back on the bottom. And I have had a black faced paly and a shuriken blue zoa close up and remain closed after moving them up.

The tank is 3 months old so the lights are still pretty new but should I be having this problem?

 

[RareEarthCorals]

I placed my blastos and leather on the very top of my tank. I didnt feel like I had too much lighting just not the right type.

I switched my lighting to AI Hydra 26, and Im getting back colors that were lost due to bad lighting.

I could be that the corals were place in the "darker" part of the tank for too long and just need more time to acclimate to the stronger lighting. Move it up little by little.

Also be careful if you are dosing Supplements, You could be ODing your tank.

 

[John Stuckey]

So I just bought the Red Sea liquid dosing for calcium, buffer, and magnesium. Some of my problems have occurred after I added the first dose of buffer. I admittedly was confused by the incredibly poor set of instructions and added 30ml of buffer only to then find online here that I should not dose more than 14ml per day on a 29 gallon tank. Do you think that single buffer overdose could be part of my problem?

 

[RareEarthCorals]

Oh ya big time, what are your levels? Are you testing?

 

[RareEarthCorals]

If you OD your tank you will need to figure out how much and do water changes to dilute those levels. Your Alk (hardness) at that level will severely effect your corals.

 

[John Stuckey]

I stopped using the Red Sea dosing chemicals and haven't gone back to them. Instead I switched to the Red Sea Coral Pro Marine Salt. I'm happy with it. I do wonder if dosing properly would help even more. I need to do more research.